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OTTAWA — After months of denying it spies on Canadians, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) now admits it may "incidentally" read or hear Canadians' communications.

"The National Defence Act acknowledges that this may happen and provides for the minister of national defence to authorize this interception in specific circumstances," CSE said in a new posting on its website. "If a private communication is incidentally intercepted (e.g. a foreign individual we are targeting overseas is communicating with someone in Canada), CSE takes steps to protect the privacy of that information."

CSE also admits it's allowed to help CSIS, the Mounties and Canada Border Services Agency "in a variety of circumstances — including intercept operations against a Canadian or individuals in Canada."

National security blogger Bill Robinson says that means CSE can use information gleaned from Canadians.

"If it falls into the government's collection priorities, they certainly will use it," he said Friday.

CSE began to slightly pull back the curtain on its operations by updating its website shortly before Christmas.

That followed months of controversy over its work, based in part on documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden that indicated that CSE might have spied on behalf of the NSA, and might have authorized NSA spying in Canada during the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto.

Robinson says CSE's trickle of new information is a step forward.

"I thought it was especially positive to see them be a bit more frank about where they stand with relation to monitoring Canadian communications," he said.

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